Things have been different around the house off lately. It is past midnight and as I write this, there is complete quiet here. Not the usual, joyful, serenely comforting calm of my home but the suffocating silence and it is unsettling.
I am feeling bit rung out of energy with my tired body that is uncooperative to the will. My mind is constantly reiterating on doing double time with me even while I am on verge of collapse any moment! It is a very peculiar feeling to be physically exhausted, emotionally drained and yet your mind wanting to work relentlessly. While my body and mind struggle to have a compatible, synchronized rhythm, there is a quiet riot in my heart. I am stressed, withdrawn, looking blankly outside my window.
I stare vacuously at the screen of my laptop. A glance at the photo on the screen and it brings alive, hues of twilight sky. I look out from the window with weary eyes and the silhouettes of a quiet night calms my nerves for a moment. The cool breeze, a few shining stars and random barking of a street dog keep me company while weight of each moment passing by becomes difficult to bear.
At the table near me are the medical files of my mother in law on which I have worked for last four hours, planning next course of action, figuring out how to accommodate her dozens of tests and counseling sessions with psychiatrist in a routinely frazzled schedule. Having a cancer patient in the house is painfully long and deeply exhausting experience.
I am on the brink, physically and emotionally. A casual insensitive remark a relative made last week rings in my mind, yet again! I can't stop thinking how inflicting pain seems to be uniquely human trait because in Nature, creatures kill one another for the sake of food, dominance or territory. Why do we do it? Why do we stand by and watch others passively while they suffer and add to their pain and attain joy out of it? Some incidents bruise you deeply questioning the very basis of relationships within family and outside it. Past few months, me and my family have experienced harrowing time.
Not many of us honour life but when people fail to disregard decorum and sanctity that life threatening illness naturally commands, the realization numbs you.
I keep reminding myself "this moment too shall pass". From across the window I hear little chirping of birds, indicating arrival of new day. I dash to the bed praying God to grant me and my family all the strength and equilibrium to help us pass through this difficult phase in our life and ability to accept what is beyond our control and garner acceptance and serenity.
